who believes that doubling the cost in wages of running a bus service in central London (not to mention the cost of the new buses on top when you've got perfectly servicable ones already) is in anyway a sensible thing to be doing loses all credibility with me immediately.

Incorrect. It's barely even a think-tank. They basically turn Guardian op-eds into lengthy publications which recommend Britain becomes more like it was in the 1970s.

And it's very distant from the Labour party leadership, even though Neal Lawson is a one time political ally of Gordon Brown. Most Compassites don't like Brown because they expected him to move the party wildly to the left.

Neal Lawson has actually just been made editor of the New Statesman. I give it 2 years till it hits the wall...

you're absolutely right that it's barely a think-tank, because it's essentially a one-man band. - NL plus interns. It activity ebbs and flows according to his schedule/level of interest. Its support base, insofar as it has one, seems to be the kind of people who are much happier in opposition than in power. Respectable! Well-regarded! Completely Useless!